The Case for Birth Control: A Supplementary Brief and Statement of FactsSanger, Margaret
Science
The Case for Birth Control: A Supplementary Brief and Statement of Facts
Sanger, Margaret
Birth control; Eugenics
The actual rise of the population, after allowing for migration, is, of
course, given by the census returns. Fig. 1 shows the variation of the
total population of the United Kingdom and of England and Wales, from
1850 onwards.
Many of you will have heard alarmist statements from various quarters to
the effect that our population is rapidly becoming stationary owing to
the combined results of a declining birth-rate and an accelerated
emigration. In the _Fortnightly Review_ for February last an article on
“The Danger of Unrestricted Emigration,” by Mr. Archibald Hurd,
contained a characteristic statement of this kind:—“The population of
Ireland and Scotland is rapidly declining, and that of England and Wales
is now practically stagnant, the natural increase only slightly
exceeding the outflow due to emigration.”
We will deal with Ireland in a moment; but as regards both England and
Wales and Scotland the statement appears entirely unwarranted. The
actual increase of population in England and Wales between the censuses
of 1901 and 1911 was 10.9 per cent., which is only a little below the
“natural” increase (in Wales it reached the unprecedentedly high
increase of 18.1 per cent.); while in Scotland the actual increase of
population was 6.4 per cent. over the decade. Probably these alarms were
due to consideration of emigration apart from immigration or from return
of our own emigrants.[7] The actual increase of population for the whole
of the United Kingdom was 9.1 per cent.; and this has only been exceeded
twice in the past six decades.
Footnote 7:
Further investigation appears to indicate that the official statistics
concerning emigration and immigration are very unreliable. The
Statistical Abstract for the United Kingdom for 1912 gives the total
emigration in the ten years 1901–10 as 4,724,233, and the total
immigration 2,409,490, leaving an outward balance of 2,314,723. In the
same period there were 11,628,493 births and 6,780,266 deaths, giving
a natural increase of 4,848,227; and since the actual increase by the
census returns was 3,757,944, the net loss by emigration could only
have been 1,091,283 or less than half of the officially recorded
number. Thus it appears that little over one-fifth of our natural
increase is lost by emigration. (Since writing this, I find the
Registrar-General admits the returns prior to 1908 were defective.)
We need not consider Scotland further, as its variations resemble those
of England and Wales.
[Illustration: FIG. 4.—AUSTRALIA.]
[Illustration: FIG. 5.—NEW ZEALAND.]
[Illustration: FIG. 6.—ONTARIO, CANADA.]
[Illustration: FIG. 7.—TORONTO.]
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